


English Country Garden

by Gorillazgal86



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Domestic Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Slice of Life, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 02:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20418641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gorillazgal86/pseuds/Gorillazgal86
Summary: Having only kept house plants previously, he delighted in the changing landscape of his country garden.  The previous owner had carefully selected the plants to ensure year-round beauty and by the end of the first year in the cottage, he had carefully catalogued each plant, when it bloomed, when it needed pruned and he developed a strict regime to mirror that which he subjected his house plants to.





	English Country Garden

The mature gardens was amongst the primary selling points for Crowley, when it came to purchasing the South Down's cottage. The garden consisted of two good sized flower beds, blooming with blue and pink hydrangeas, soft purple heathers, maple red acers, leafy yellow and green evergreens and a veritable rainbow of roses. In the first year, Crowley watched the garden carefully, studying it. He noted everything carefully, the butter yellow daffodils that emerged from their bulbs, marking the first sign of spring, the rich blousy blooms of English roses in the damp heat of summer, the soft white flowers of the cotoneaster that would become small apple-red berries in the autumn.

Having only kept house plants previously, he delighted in the changing landscape of his country garden. The previous owner had carefully selected the plants to ensure year-round beauty and by the end of the first year in the cottage, he had carefully catalogued each plant, when it bloomed, when it needed pruned and he developed a strict regime to mirror that which he subjected his house plants to.

Crowley learned, however, in year two, that plan wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

House plants, on the whole, live a plush and comfortable life. They benefit from regular watering, central heating and due to being indoors, would be kissed gently by the sun through a window. As such, they were sheltered and impressionable things that bent themselves to Crowley's will. They simply didn't know any better.

The outdoor plants, on the other hand, spent their existence exposed to the sun's harsh rays, enduring bitter frosts and snow and days without rain to quench their roots. The outdoor plants knew a force more terrifying then Crowley and bent to her will alone and that was Mother Nature.

Crowley could influence the small annuals he planted out easily enough, but the perennials had no fear in a sharp-tongued demon. He shouted and swore and they would simply ignore him. If he had forgot to water them or deadhead the blooms, they would wait patiently, dropping the browned petals wherever they felt like it. This, naturally, infuriated Crowley.

"This is wholly unacceptable!! You are my plants and this is my garden! I will not tolerate this insolence, I will rip the lot of you out and start all over again!" He marched into his greenhouse, grabbed a hacksaw and held it threateningly at a particularly overgrown laurel.

"I swear to Satan I'll do it," He growled.

The laurel shrugged. It's roots were 20 years deep, good chance it would just grow back and spoil whatever he planted in its stead. Mature gardens know how lovely they are when well-kept and how challenging it can be to recreate the splendour they provide. He could scream all he wanted; they weren't going anywhere.

"Arrrrrrgh!" he cried in frustration and threw the hacksaw aside.

Crowley had learned by year three, he was just going to have to manage this the human way. With gloves, a wheelbarrow and old-fashioned hard work.

For his part, Aziraphale enjoyed watching Crowley tend to the garden. He settled comfortable in the porch swing they had installed and read while Crowley worked. He could offer to help, but he preferred to watch the show.

He watched from behind his book as Crowley, dressed in dirt-stained shorts, a vest top and welly boots, headphones perched on his ears (if he couldn't shout at this plants, he figured he may as well enjoy some music to pass the time). He pulled on the rubber gardening gloves and grabbed his ever-sharp secateurs and got to work.

He mumbled to himself unintelligibly and hummed tunelessly as he worked, clipping back overly tall offshoots, plaiting spent daffodils, stepping back occasionally to check size and shape before diving back in. Crowley paid particular care to the roses, highly scented, voluptuous David Austin types. He dutifully pulled the suckers, snipped the spent blooms and from time to time, would bury his nose in deep, taking in the rich scent.

Aziraphale chuckled as he watched Crowley twist himself to try and reach around the roses to another plant, only to be caught by one of the many thorns.

"Damnit, ouch," he carefully removed the thorn and rubbed the scratch left behind. "If you weren't so fucking pretty, I'd burn the lot of you."

Out of the corner of his eye, Aziraphale watched as something flew from the flower bed, high into the sky and out into the lane. He sipped his lemon barley water thoughtfully and then said, "Dear, don't throw Sister Slug."

"Don't give me that Brother Francis bullshit. They're rotten pests and you know it," Crowley pulled his headphones down and glared at Aziraphale.

"Even still, you don't need to throw them like that."

Crowley mocked him, "Don't need to throw them like that . . . "

Aziraphale hid his smile behind his book.

Summer days passed like this, in the near silence that one could only hear in the countryside. The soft rustle of a warm breeze on the grass, plants fluttering in contentment, a windmill turning lazily, the odd tractor rumbling past, to which both Aziraphale and Crowley would raise an absent-minded hand in a polite, wordless hello. Barley water would turn into gin and tonics and after the gardening tools were secured back into the greenhouse, Crowley would settle into the swing next to Aziraphale and they would just quietly admire their home.

Aziraphale wound his fingers into Crowley's as the sun turned the sky orange and pink, the long summer day only just slipping away. Crowley squeezed Aziraphale's hand in return.

The angel and the demon both agreed that it was perhaps not the most exciting existence, but it was peaceful, idyllic and just what two supernatural entities needed in their retirement.


End file.
